The Smile: If You Can Do Nothing Else, You Can Smile (Classic Reprint) - Tapa blanda

Excerpt from The Smile: If You Can Do Nothing Else, You Can Smile

Most people, even orators and actors, have peculiar conceptions, not to say misconceptions, of action as a language.

About the Publisher

Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com

This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.

Excerpt from The Smile: If You Can Do Nothing Else, You Can Smile

Most people, even orators and actors, have peculiar conceptions, not to say misconceptions, of action as a language.

One proof of this is found in the fact that the word "gesture' which names the least important of all phases of action, is the common name applied by most people to all the expressive movements, attitudes and bearings of the body.

The ordinary person has about as clear an impression of what pantomimic expression means as the little girl who was asked to define the word "chivalry" and said it was what she felt when she was cold.

To me action is man's first language and the one primarily concerned in the revelation of character. Action, however, is a subject as difficult to discuss as it is to understand. It can never be explained and taught as other subjects.

John Stuart Mill said that one who knows but a single language is apt to take words for things. This principle applies more to the primary modes of man's expression, words, tones and action as different languages, than to Italian and French. If to think an idea in French as well as English frees a man from confusing an idea with its symbol and gives him a better understanding of truth, how much more will ability to realize the function of voice modulations and of the action of the body lead to a more adequate realization?

About the Publisher

Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com

This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.